


On An Endless Night

by CaptainTulip



Category: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 03:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19076287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTulip/pseuds/CaptainTulip
Summary: A series of vignettes starting at the beginning and finishing at the end. 1983-1997.





	On An Endless Night

_one_  
  
"Blixa," Mick mutters, running his hands along the sides of his guitar. The rain is battering down upon the windows and a few droplets leak down the paper-thin walls. He shifts slightly, too uncomfortable to relax but too inebriated to move. He cranes his neck to look over at Nick, who is slumped up against the wall. "Sort of an odd name, isn't it?"  
  
Nick rubs his hands vigorously up and down his face. The thin lines of kohl have smudged down his cheeks and hands but he barely seems to have registered it. "Yeah, what a pain to have an  _odd name_." He coughs inelegantly. "Better everyone was called Nick, Mick and Dick like the rest of us."  
  
Mick guffaws, as he knows is expected. "Sounds a bit like a superhero, doesn't it? A cartoon character, or something." He thinks of Blixa's skin tight leather outfit and chuckles to himself, imagining a long leather cape to match. "Blixa Bargeld," he says aloud with a sense of relish.  
  
"Blixa Bargeld," Nick affirms, a twinge of annoyance in his voice that Mick has learned to be weary of. "I think he's fucking brilliant," he states.  
  
Mick rolls his eyes. "Well,  _you_  would, wouldn't you?" He takes a large swig from the bottle resting on the couch beside him. It tastes bitter and old, and vaguely of Nick's mouth.  
  
"What th'fuck s'that s'posed to mean?" Nick grumbles.  
  
Mick laughs easily. "That you're a flaming poof, what else?"  
  
Nick flumps down backwards on the bed, frowning. "Yeah," he mutters, "you better believe it." He pulls a crumpled cigarette out of his pocket and lights it like he's been doing it all his life. "I'd crawl over all the smack in the world just to get to one pretty boy's arsehole."  
  
Mick pulls a face. "Now you're just being disgusting--"  
  
"Blixa's gotta be the prettiest boy I've ever seen," Nick continues, breathing smoke through his teeth. "I mean, if it had to be anyone--"  
  
"Which it doesn't."  
  
"--it'd be him. Bet he'd make the prettiest little noises, too."  
  
"Yeah," Mick laughs, "but they'd all be in German so you wouldn't know if he was telling you to go harder or that his mum had arrived home."  
  
"Everyone," Nick says importantly, waving his smoke in air, "speaks the language of  _love_."  
  
"Lucky for you, who seems incapable of learning any other language than--"  
  
"Fuck you," Nick says good-naturedly, and the two lapse into silence again. After a while, Nick hums slightly. "Think he'd think I's a fag if I came on t'him?"  
  
Mick sits up slightly. "If you came on to him, you  _would_  be a fag."  
  
"Could just say, thought you were a girl, Blixy, whoopsee daisy." Nick's mouth stretches into a large smile. "Fucked that one up before, haven't I?"  
  
Mick snorts. "You've also  _pretended_  to fuck that one up before," he says pointedly.  
  
"Have not."  
  
"Have too."  
  
"Have  _not_."  
  
"Have  _too_."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Plenty of times."  
  
"I'm a cold-blooded Aussie heterosexual,  _thank-you-very-much_ ," Nick mutters, lifting his hand up too fast and elbowing the wall just hard enough to create a crack. He slumps down face-first onto the carpet and a muffled groan of pain emits somewhere around the bushy head of over-slicked hair.  
  
"So if Blixa comes to me, in all his Germanic earnestness, and asks what your reaction would be to his coming on to you, I should say...?"  
  
Nick lifts his head up slightly to crow, "Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am!" before slumping it back down to the sound of Mick's guffaws filling the little room.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_two_  
  
As always, it takes Nick a moment to process what Blixa has said. "You've been with a man?"  
  
"Of course," Blixa says, staring at Nick with his bright, penetrating eyes. "We Germans are all about homosexuality."  
  
Nick frowns, blowing a long stream of smoke just to the side of Blixa's face. "Is that a joke?"  
  
Blixa laughs, shortly. "Yes and no," he says, a note in his voice like he doesn't intend to say anymore.  
  
Nick hums quietly to himself, pretending he isn't interested. His humming gets louder as Blixa's eyes get brighter and more teasing. "So?" he finally snaps, as if being forced. "What's it like?"  
  
Blixa leans his head back on the couch, exposing his long, pale neck. "You have never...?"  
  
"Course not," Nick says, like it's an affront.  
  
Blixa sighs and leans back, settling his hands across his knees like he's preparing to tell a story around a campfire. "Women," he says softly, "they are soft and wet." He licks his lips slightly and there's something about it that makes Nick feel awkward in a good way. "They are comfortable. Easy. Slow." His voice reverberates around Nick's chest. "When you are together with a  _man_ , there is not so much thinking. It is hard and fast and you can only  _feel_ , you know what I mean? It is  _real_. In the same way that to be together with a woman is -- how do you say it -- surreal."  
  
Nick hesitates. "Deep," he deadpans.  
  
Blixa looks at him queerly for a moment before he throws his head back and laughs. "You know," he says with a maniacal grin, "everywhere that I am going, people are talking about what awful, disgusting things you have done -- eat alive animals and have bath in blood, but you are not having sex with men. You are not truly  _badass_ , as you say, until you are having sex with a man."  
  
"Utter bullshit," Nick mutters, taking a long drag from his cigarette. "I only eat dead animals and I  _never_  have baths." He looks sideways at Blixa. "And was that a proposition?"  
  
Blixa's grin morphs into a smirk. "Would you say yes, if I say it is?"  
  
Nick frowns, blowing smoke slowly into badly formed rings. He taps the ash from his cigarette onto Blixa's shiny leather shoes. "Probably not."  
  
Blixa has him all figured out and doesn't miss a beat. "'Probably' does not sound like a straight man."  
  
"Too sober to do anything that exciting," Nick counters.  
  
Blixa gazes at him calculatingly for a moment before shrugging and turning his head away. The moment appears to pass and they sit side by side in comfortable silence, calmly smoking their cigarettes and watching the world go by.   
  
Blixa slowly raises his hand up, and out of the corner of his eye Nick notices he's grasping a very promising-looking unlabelled bottle of filthy coloured liquid. "Too sober?" Blixa asks, innocently.  
  
Nick doesn't hesitate to grin, and grabs the bottle out of Blixa's hand.   
  
"Bottom's up," he says, wiggling his eyebrows.   
  


* * *

  
  
_three_  
  
"Well, I just think it is wrong, to think in this way about this."  
  
Nick takes a puff of his cigarette. "Well, that's your opinion," he says flatly.  
  
"Yes, that is my opinion, but I am thinking you need some other opinion. You say to me, you are thinking this sounds bad, but in fact it does not. You do not hear it like you should, what the listeners will hear. You are thinking, what you hoped it would be and now you are finding it difficult to--"  
  
"Why can't it be like I hoped it would be? It's my music, isn't it?"  
  
Blixa sighs. "What you do is good stuff, that's what I'm saying. This way -- this does not make less of what you do, who you are as an artist--"  
  
"That's just bullshit," Nick snaps, throwing his smoke on the ground and stubbing it out with a long, pointy boot. "I'm sick of this conversation. I'm sick of this fucking song, in fact. Chuck it out. I don't give a fuck anymore."  
  
"That is totally what I am not saying--"  
  
"Forget it," Nick mutters. "It's, what, three in the morning? And we've been fucking around on these stupid things with this stupid song for  _how_  long, now? Christ. I'm going home." Nick turns around and heads to the door, taking note of Blixa shuffling the papers awkwardly behind him. He shoves his hand into his pocket, fingering his keys, and stops in the doorway. "You coming?" he calls back, without looking.  
  
There is a long pause. "Are we going to fuck or are we going to fight?"  
  
Nick smirks to himself, imagining the petulant look on Blixa's face. "How about a bit of both?"   
  
A more calculated pause this time. "Yes, alright."  
  
Nick swings around and crosses his arms over his chest. "Are you going to make that face the whole time?"  
  
"What face?" Blixa says, pursing his lips.  
  
"That one." Nick takes a few predatory steps towards the other man. "One I couldn't get my cock through even if I tried."  
  
Blixa rolls his eyes, taking a step back and leaning enticingly against the wall. "You are a dirty, filthy man."  
  


* * *

  
  
_four_  
  
As they're driving home, Nick takes one hand away from the wheel and places it decisively on Blixa's crotch. Something about the cool, calm safety of being ensconced in a car makes him want to  _snap_. Blixa sucks in a breath that goes straight to Nick's groin and glances sideways.  
  
"Think men can multi-task?" Nick murmurs, slowly kneading his hand.  
  
"Now," Blixa says with only the slightest hitching of breath, "is not the best time for testing." Matter-of-factly. Like always.  
  
"You'd rather wait?"  
  
Blixa hesitates. "Yes," he says eventually.  
  
Nick makes a split second decision and slams down on the breaks.  
  
"Mein Gott!" Blixa shouts and half a dozen cars behind them blast their horns. A couple yell abusive things out the window. "What are you fucking doing that for?"  
  
Nick turns and looks Blixa squarely in the eyes, as the traffic flies past. "I want to fuck you," he murmurs.  
  
"Here?"   
  
Nick looks over his shoulder nonchalantly. "Why not?"  
  
" _Scheiße_ , you are insane!"  
  
"Thought you said public sex made you horny?" Nick says, his long limbs suddenly everywhere in an attempt to get closer to the other man. "Thought you said," he whispers wetly in Blixa's ear, "you'd love to fuck me for a crowd."  
  
"I did not mean in the middle of the night on a  _highway_ ," Blixa snaps, but leans his head back accommodatingly. Nick's hands run down the sides of his tatty t-shirt and slip underneath, his coarse fingers brushing over Blixa's hardening nipples. "Fuck," Blixa murmurs appreciatively, and Nick grins at him in lazy triumph.  
  
"I could fuck you  _right here_ ," Nick whispers, clambering onto Blixa's lap. They're so close together Blixa can feel Nick's heart pumping against his and it sends little shivers of lust and excitement and adrenaline down his spine.  
  
"No room," Blixa gasps against Nick's mouth. Nick's hand fumbles away from his ministrations to the side of the seat, and with a sudden twanging noise the seat jerks backwards and Blixa's gets a mouthful of hair as they're suddenly horizontal. "Bleurgh!"  
  
"Sorry," Nick mutters, but he doesn't look it, ruffling a hand in his long dark hair with a predatory smile. He uses Blixa's chest to push himself up slightly, tearing off his t-shirt and jacket with almost practiced ease, shoving them in the back seat with the rest of the day's junk -- cigarette butts, cider bottles, broken needles and the hardier records. He leans back down, pushing up Blixa's shirt to press their hot skin together, and grinds his hips into Blixa's with a guttural groan. "Fuck,  _yeah_ ," he mutters hoarsely. Suddenly his hands are at Blixa's belt, scraping past the jagged metal and pulling it roughly away. His deft fingers make quick work of their respective buttons and suddenly there is nothing between them, and it's all sticky sweat and velvety flesh and murmured platitudes and " _Fuck_  that feels..." and "You like that?" and "Oh mein Gott..." till they're both coming, Nick's large and calloused hand stroking them to completion.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_five_  
  
"Blixa..."  
  
" _Nein_!" Blixa shouts, slamming the door in Nick's face.   
  
"Come on--"  
  
"I am just  _standing_  there!  _Scheiße_! Do you know what that is like? To be just standing there in the video? Like I can't do anything at all!"  
  
"You said you didn't want to--"  
  
"Because I am not playing in the song. Why would I play in the video if nothing plays in the song? This, for me -- there is not any point in it. This for me is so completely idiotic -- but  _standing there is just as bad_!"  
  
"Look, just open then door and--"  
  
" _Du hast keine Ahnung_!"  
  
"Oh, yeah, that'll help," Nick breathes, "how bout I switch to Aborigine too--"  
  
The door swings open. "I feel like a fucking idiot," Blixa hisses.  
  
Nick runs a hand through his hair. "Well, what the hell do you want me to do about it?"  
  
"How about you write a fucking song that I can play in?"  
  
Nick shakes his head. "We're a band, why don't you just say--"  
  
"Don't give me that," Blixa snaps. "Everyone knows  _you_  are the singer,  _you_  are the artist,  _you_  are the writer and we are just doing what you tell us to."  
  
Nick stares at him, a lump rising in his throat. "Is that honestly what you think?"  
  
Blixa takes a shuddering breath. "No," he says levelly. "But it is how I  _feel_  sometimes. For the others, maybe it's ok, but for me, I was a lead singer. You know?" He sighs. "The Bad Seeds are for you how Einstürzende was for me, and I can absolutely understand what you are doing and feeling but I just don't know if I can continue 'supporting' you in this way. Especially now that..." Blixa trails off.  
  
"Now that what?"  
  
"Now that..." Blixa looks uncomfortable. "Now that it is not just us. Like it was. Now there are women and wives and children and--"  
  
"You know I've never given a shit about all that."  
  
Blixa looks at him piercingly. "Of  _course_  you do. And I would never want you to stop giving a shit."  
  
Nick scuffs his shoe on the ground and runs his hand nervously through his hair again. "But -- I mean, what about us?"  
  
Blixa shrugs. "What  _about_  us?" He catches the look on Nick's face and throws up his hands. "I don't know, probably I am just having a melodramatic moment and everything will be fine in the morning and we will all of us continue on the same for the next twenty years and we will all sit around and laugh about how stupid Blixa almost left the band one time."  
  
"Well, good." Nick takes a step closer, brushing a tender hand across Blixa's face in a gesture somewhat alien to them both. "It just wouldn't be the same without you, you know?"  
  
The rain batters heavily at the windows and they rattle in their sills.  
  
"No," Blixa murmurs softly. "It wouldn't."  
  
  



End file.
